


Tragedy Among the Scholars of War

by gigantic



Category: Igby Goes Down
Genre: Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, Yuletide, Yuletide 2004, challenge:Yuletide 2004
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-25
Updated: 2004-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 14:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/pseuds/gigantic





	Tragedy Among the Scholars of War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tracy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tracy/gifts).



**madman bum and angel**

"You do know that 'collect' means you pay for this." His voice crackles over the line, and Oliver looks at the caller ID for the area code again. The first three digits read '323.'

Oliver snaps his wrist, the phone coming back to his ear. He says, "You're in Los Angeles."

The rumbling of traffic in the background drowns out Igby's voice some -- softens the edges of it. Oliver presses the receiver harder against his ear and wills away the noise. Igby says, "I'm in transition."

"You're in L.A. and you've already started speaking in platitudes," Oliver amends.

For a moment, Igby's voice sounds fainter, slightly farther away when he says, "Sorry, no. I'm as broke as you are -- sorry," and the mumbled response of someone else follows. A dog barks, and Igby comes back, saying, "They're always trying to sell you something. And everybody has a dog out here. I swear, including the bums -- chihuahuas and poodles. Everybody has something to keep them company."

Oliver could probably mention Sookie here. It might be the perfect time to mention that they haven't really spoken in a while. It took them a month or two more than anyone might have expected, but she finally realized that they had nothing in common other than age, and you can only talk about that so many times.

Instead, Oliver shifts the phone to his opposite shoulder and pours himself a drink. He says, "I'm sure."

Igby laughs softly, words coated by the clatter of passing voices somewhere behind him. "You have no idea, actually," and Oliver gets distracted by his cell ringing just then, so he misses the last thing Igby says before the line dies.

 

 

**great suicidal dramas**

Oliver brought him a towel afterwards. He sat in to watch the beginning of the movie with the other kids and used the bathroom as an excuse to get away. He and the others had gotten dressed by then too, but when he stepped out back, Igby was sitting on the diving board in his trunks, kicking at the water.

He looked up at Oliver briefly and jerked his face back towards the ripples in pool. Oliver tossed a towel he had grabbed on his way out over Igby's shoulders.

He said, "You wanted to come here. You made mom and dad bring us to this stupid party."

"Shut up."

"Are you going to cry?"

"Shut _up_."

Igby pulled the towel tighter around himself, and Oliver noticed the way Igby's skin shivered as he moved. Oliver rested the palm of his hand on Igby's back lightly where the towel ended and pale skin continued. Igby shifted a little on the board, and Oliver held it there. The weather hadn't dropped too low. It may have been in the high seventies at worst, and Oliver had lived with his younger brother long enough to know when Igby just wanted to make things difficult. It wasn't Oliver's fault if Igby refused to get dressed.

He said, "Dad's coming. I called him."

"You didn't have to." And Igby dropped the towel then. Oliver planted both of his hands on the board and pushed himself up.

"Of course I didn't." He dusted off his hands and started for the house. "But they'll forget to walk Faraday."

 

 

**incomparable blind**

He sees Sookie during lunch some afternoons. Sometimes she sits across the room with pea soup and bread, because they made the mistake of creating a 'spot' that neither gave up despite things. He figures she keeps going to spite him, and he won't stop eating there because D.H. taught him that losing a battle didn't always need to follow actual confrontation when he was thirteen. Plus, the penne rigate is unparalled and the waiters know to have the cooks exclude mushrooms without Oliver needing to say so.

Not that he would ever admit it, but Oliver has a certain appreciation for routine. Igby's fought repetition since he was born, and it might almost be amusing to think that's the reason why they're nothing alike.

There was one morning -- Sookie had climbed in during Oliver's shower wearing her underwear. He snapped the lace strap on her bra, and she went on for several minutes about some winter concert in Boston. She kept saying, "Forget about D.H. and your meetings or whatever. You have to own at least one hoodie." And, no, he didn't have to own any such thing. He kept thinking about D.H., about the six figure deal they were closing later that day, and Oliver would have much rather let the soap in his hair fall into his eyes than choose Massachusetts over being in the office for that.

He had said, "Could you pass me that washcloth behind you?" which also meant, " _I'm not my brother_ ," and finished his shower before she made him late.

 

 

**crosscountry seventytwo hours**

His mother said, "Jason, please, I think we've heard enough 'golden oldies' for one car ride," and suddenly the music cut off. Oliver was no longer asleep.

His eyes stayed shut, head tilted at an awkward angle with his forehead pressed against cool glass. Part of his neck stuck to the leather seat, and somewhere near his lap, Oliver's fingers had gone numb. He flexed the digits barely and gave up.

Jason -- dad. Oliver heard him sigh gruffly. "Ah, come on, Mimi. Sometimes you need words to sing along with."

"Well. It might be a very different thing, Jason, if you could sing," she replied. The click of the tape player punctuated her sentence. Slowly, the opening notes of a famliar jazz tune echoed in the speakers. Mimi had always particularly enjoyed Charles Mingus. "But since you insist on being tone deaf..."

"Of course."

"Honestly, darling, I don't know why we couldn't just fly to--"

"This isn't that bad, is it? A trip with the family." His father laughed, voice breathless and distant. Oliver thought about how different it sounded from D.H.'s chuckle -- bright, disarming, false. "Are the boys sleeping?"

He heard the seat shift a bit. Mimi said, "Oliver's pretending to be." His eyes snapped open then. Mimi's eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. She didn't smile.

Jason tipped his chin up, caught Oliver's gaze through the review mirror. His grin matched his laugh. "Wake up your brother, Ollie. We'll stop for food."

Again curling his finger under whatever weight trapped them, Oliver glanced down. Igby squirmed along the seat, Oliver's fingertips grazing the skin along Igby's neck and probably tickling the skin. His brown hair scratched faintly against the fabric of Oliver's pants. Oliver kept his movements steady: short, even strokes across Igby's skin until the kid opened his eyes. Igby stared up, blinking sleep from his eyelids, and Oliver pinched him.

"Ow!" Igby sat up, indignant and punched Oliver's thigh.

Oliver said, "You were cutting off my circulation."

"Good," Igby threw back, punching Oliver's leg again for good measure before sliding back to his side of the backseat. Under his breath, he muttered, "Apeface."

They ate hamburgers for lunch, and Oliver stole some of Igby's fries when he left to use the bathroom.

 

 

**lightning in the mind**

The text reads '911,' but Oliver considers ignoring it altogether for ten minutes before he rises from the table and walks out of the lecture. He refuses to regret the decision in an hour.

It's a foreign number and when the other line picks up, he immediately says, "Not everyone can afford to fail in school as gracefully as you have."

"Though I'm sure you don't fall into that category." Igby crunches into the line, mouth apparently stuffed. Oliver curls his lips only slightly.

He says, "So this is a question of money."

"Mm, yes, or," and Oliver imagines Igby picking his teeth to accompany his dramatic pause. "One of genetics, depending on how you look at it. I'm only seventeen after all."

"You mean you're broke," Oliver corrects. Tossing his jacket on a bench next to him, he leans against the wall. So far, he has been out of class two minutes.

Igby keeps chewing into the reciever. Around his food, he mumbles, "Semantics."

"What do you want?"

Instantly, Igby speaks in a spew of syllables, and Oliver wonders how long Igby must have stood by the phone before finally sending him the message. "My money. Whether from D.H. or dad or Mimi. I know I have _something_ , and I know she must have told you where -- "

Oliver closes the cell and walks back to class. He checks the time -- gone no more than four minutes. No one looks at him when he sits back down.

 

 

**anecdotes and eyeball kicks**

They attended the same schools until the middle of Igby's ninth grade year, and most people never knew they were related. Oliver wasn't ashamed of his brother so much as he didn't feel compelled to interact with him at home, so why should life be too much different elsewhere?

Now, Igby lied on the pavement, limbs sprawled wildly, and Oliver turned around with his fist already clenched in mid-air. The other boy's head jerked back on impact, and Oliver only glanced back at Igby briefly before he resumed, hitting his target again and watching him crumble to the concrete beneath them.

Those were the only few moments in his entire life that Oliver ever stopped thinking, and by the time Igby hollered for him to stop, the skin across Oliver's knuckles was already bright red and split. For a few endless seconds, Oliver was sixteen and stupid.

Igby said, "Ollie," stretching his jaw cautiously. Oliver sat back on his kness and closed his eyes.

In the office later, Oliver kept his raw hand hidden in his pocket. The dean eyed him. He said, "Mr. Slocumb -- Oliver. Since you're the elder of the two of you here, would you mind explaining what happened outside earlier?"

Oliver sat up in his chair. "I, uh --"

"He stopped us," Igby interrupted. "The other guy had me down, and Ollie here pushed him off."

"Is that correct, Oliver?" The dean asked, peering over the rim of his glasses.

Oliver looked at Igby who had turned his face toward the window. "Yeah," he said inaudibly and then cleared his throat. "Yes."

Administration expelled Igby immediately, and the next day, Oliver was back in class. His best associate at the time, Gregory, worked as a teacher's assitant during one period and had heard about the incident. During lunch, he kept saying, "And, wow, he's your brother? I never would have even pegged you two as friends."

Oliver ate his food and didn't face him. He said, "Yeah, well. Good thing we aren't then."

 

 

**hopeful little bit of hallucination**

What Oliver does is this: Igby has P.O. box despite not having a permanent address, so he mails off another non-refundable plane ticket and a small note containing four digits from an entire account number and the words, ' _You're only seventeen after all_.' The next time he shares tea with Bunny while D.H. finishes up some paperwork in his home office, Oliver tells her that Igby will be in town on Friday.

She says, "Oh, Igby? But I thought he'd gone to California! What's the occassion?"

"He'll be eighteen," Oliver informs and sips from his cup.

On Thursday, he passes his usual table at the restuarant and sits across from Sookie. She eyes him at first, says, "I don't think --"

He says, "Igby'll be back tomorrow."

Sookie furrows her brow, delicate lines creeping across her face. She asks, "Why?"

Oliver shakes his head, takes a pen out of his pocket and starts writing evenly on a napkin. "Four o'clock," he mutters as he scrawls the letters. He leaves without eating, and on his way out Oliver stops, turns back to her. "By the way, it's his birthday."

He doesn't think about any of it again until he spots Igby sitting on the ground outside of Uris Hall at three-thirty the following afternoon. He squints upward as he looks to Oliver, lips parted in a sunlight wince. His hair has grown somewhat longer, fringe grazing his eyebrows. His clothes are more worn, comfortable. In his head, Oliver hears Mimi talking about street dwellers and hobos.

"The car found you, all right," he says. A statement, not a question.

Igby's expression becomes amused. He says, "I've recently developed an affinity for public transportation," which means the car Oliver sent is probably still sitting at the airport terminal.

"Come on." Oliver walks toward the parking lot. He doesn't turn to see if Igby follows.

 

 

**hungover with heartless**

Despite whatever story Igby tells people, Oliver taught him how to ride a bike. He still has the broken bike chain somewhere -- probably boxed up in the garage -- and the remains of old scars are still fading from Igby's left thigh. Oliver kept that incident bright in his memory for years, and when Igby needed to learn to drive, Oliver always had somewhere to be, some presentation to finish, or some girl from school to fuck.

None of that stopped Mimi from blaming him. She said, "It wouldn't kill you to spend time with your brother, Oliie."

And, no, perhaps it wouldn't, but that didn't change the nature of things: Igby had this bad habit of inviting hazards into life that Oliver couldn't afford at this point. Graduation would happen soon, and Oliver had an actual career plan he preferred to think about. Besides, Oliver hadn't been the one giving him the lesson that day; he had been outlining a project for his Government class.

Igby was banned from ever touching one of the family cars again, but Oliver almost couldn't tell that punishment had phased him. Igby sat on the couch in the living room, watching bad seventies television reruns and eating chocolate ice cream out of the carton. He laughed with the effects track.

"I guess you've culminated to wrapping BMWs around trees now," Oliver said.

Igby waved his spoon a little, a dismissal. Over his shoulder he said, "Kind of like old times, right?"

 

 

**mouth-wracked and battered**

"Brain damage, fucked up neuro-transmitters. They've found carcinogens in this--"

"Igby, I know pot won't kill me." Oliver watches Igby lick the paper, fingers pressing down as he goes. He can't imagine how many times Igby's probably done this.

Igby says, "Unfortunately," and grabs the lighter between them. He burns along the edges of the paper and then holds the joint gently in between his lips as he lights the tip.

In the nighttime darkness, Oliver sees the cherry burn brighter than the faint street lights for a moment more than he sees Igby inhale. Involuntarily, he breathes in with Igby slightly, in anticipation. When Oliver takes the joint, reflex almost has him flick it through the thin metal bars and over the baclony's edge.

"Do it and you follow," Igby says, as if he can sense Oliver's thought. Maybe, it occurs to Oliver for the first time, Igby just knows him.

They smoke in silence, all breath and no words. Oliver only takes three hits total, but he's only tried this one other time in his life, and he can gradually feel the balcony dipping under him, abnormally concave. He shuts his eyes and doesn't panic but suddenly thinks it was a bad idea for them to come back to their parents' house for this.

Blinking feels likes the hardest task he's dealt with in years, and he can't tell if time is slowing or speeding up each second. Oliver remembers a pamphlet he read in high school once, about how a person is at least ten times more vulnerable to heart attack during the first hour of a high. He pushes his tongue through his teeth to, possibly, tell Igby about that because he feels his brother trembling a little from the cold, and --

"I killed my mother last year," Igby says without prompt. Oliver cannot recall what he meant to say. "She had cancer, so she would have been dead sooner or later, but Mimi liked to be one step ahead of everybody. Including the grim reaper. Kind of like, um, that Roman philosophy: kill youself instead of suffering dishonor--"

Igby, Oliver thinks eventually. "Igby--"

"My brother and I -- it was all her plan, actually, to put the poison in strawberry ice cream. How were we supposed to know she wouldn't just die? You would've thought we'd just given her a couple sleeping pills with the way she was snoring. We suffocated her; Ollie suffocated her. You know, slipped a plastic bag over her face and then her eyes went so wide. She died right there, one long breath and the blood vessels popping in her eyeballs and--"

"-- _Igby_. I was there."

Oliver curls his fingers over Igby's thigh, chilled skin exposed. The scar has smoothed again by now, but Oliver almost convinces himself he can feel a trace of old wounds. Igby stops shivering.

 

 

**in boxes breathing**

During the Summertime, most of the students he associated with went home to visit families or get drunk in Mexico, but Oliver didn't do too many parties and one of the two people he could theoretically visit was sleeping in his suitemate's bed for the next couple weeks. Igby took advantage of the local parties some upperclassmen held in off-campus housing throughout the week. During the weekends, Oliver imagined Tommy kept him busy after their work on the loft, because he knew for a fact that D.H. didn't try to keep Igby entertained and nobody spent too much time talking to Bunny if it could be helped.

The first day he had arrived, Igby sat around Oliver's room for ten minutes and then said, "I'm going to get someone in admissions to give the grand tour. Privileges of prospective students, you know."

"What name do you plan to plan to give them?"

"I don't know yet." Igby shrugged, stood up, and put his jacket on again. "It'll come to me by the time I get there. I'm leaning towards a Rupert something-or-other so far."

Oliver nodded. "Right."

He saw very little of Igby after that. If anything, summertime on college campuses made people nocturnal. Igby had usually just gone to sleep when Oliver would wake up and get ready to meet D.H. downtown somewhere. That or Igby was on his way out of the room as Oliver was coming back from some meeting. Some days Igby didn't come back at all, and Oliver could have cared less either way. Whenever Mimi called to ask about Igby, Oliver would tell her that he was showering -- out to lunch -- sleeping. Of course she knew he was lying about some of it, but Oliver had never given anyone a reason to question him, so she didn't.

One night, Igby woke Oliver coming back into the room. It was unusual because Igby generally came back after the sun rose, and according to his clock, it wasn't even four in the morning yet. Oliver left his bed and found Igby sitting on the floor at the door, halfway into the room with light from the halway spilling down half his face. He kept rolling his head along the wall, eyes shut and making small noises at the back of his throat.

"Igby," Oliver said, sleep nowhere in his voice. He loomed over Igby and waited.

His eyes eyelids lifted slowly, and the hallway light gave away their redness. Igby laughed suddenly, like an involuntary giggle left over from a joke he heard minutes ago. He touched Oliver's ankles with his fingertips, grasping ineffectually at the skin, and Oliver reached down.

Moving to his feet finally, Igby murmured, "Ollie, I feel -- I feel," and as his legs unfolded under him, Igby's lips crashed into the edge of Oliver's mouth roughly. Correcting himself, Igby pushed himself up onto the balls of his feet and then relaxed when their mouths connected, lips pliable and Oliver held breath in his lungs.

Igby whispered, "It's -- I'm," and kissed blindly. And it was only a moment, but Oliver pushed Igby backwards and the tingle of it lingered.

He said, "Go to sleep Igby," and ignored the faint laughter when he stepped away.

 

 

**everyday for the next decade**

Oliver's tongue feels thick in his mouth, and he can only vaguely taste the salt on Igby's skin, but it makes him think of California beaches anyway. Igby's been here, staying in Oliver's dorm, spending a night at Sookie's --just _here_ , and all week Oliver has been tempted to push at his neck. He saw the west-coast tan and thought about trying to smudge it or wipe it away, and now the Oliver's thumb pushes across, he imagines the past few months seeping from Igby's pores like liquid sunshine.

It's sick when he really thinks about it. Once upon a time, his mother died here, his father went crazy in the bathroom down the hall, and now his brother has his hand in Oliver's pants. It's all pretty fucking disgusting in reality, and Oliver would hate to be one of those people fooled into thinking his life is actually some great American tragedy -- he would hate to be Igby -- but it kind of makes sense in the end, too.

Igby breathes his name, whispers, "Ollie," and the tension swells that much more, until he's choking on the weight of the air. Igby smells like cigarettes, like marijuana, and nothing like New York anymore and Oliver bites at his sweat-slick shoulder. Their movements are fleeting and flutterty and then quick and deliberate, and Oliver comes with his eyes open, face hot against Igby's spine.

 

 

**roadside lonely petticoat**

Oliver hadn't even cried that hard when he broke his leg skiing the year before, body wracked with incapitating gasps of breath and hot tears burning his cheeks. He blamed Igby at first, hands coiled around his brother's throat because it was usually Igby's fault when things happened --

"Where is he? Where is he, Igby? I know you took him!"

"Get off of me! Ollie!"

\-- but the pure fear he found in Igby's eyes as oxygen grew short made him loosen his grip.

They searched the neighborhood for hours that afternoon. After every block they came up empty-handed, Jason said, "Don't worry, buddy, we'll find him," and Oliver wanted to hit him. Igby avoided Oliver as much as possible, rubbing at his neck and giving him sideways looks from several feet away.

By sundown, Oliver had given up, the skin on his face dry and tight. His eyes itched, but Oliver focused on the way his breath puffed out into the cool air and refused to scratch them.

Igby came out onto the backporch and sat down beside him. He opened Oliver's hand, dropped the thin collar into his palm. He said, "Dad said we can look again tomorrow."

"He's gone. There's no point." Oliver smoothed the metal tags over with his thumb.

"Ollie, I didn't let Faraday out; I promise."

"It doesn't matter," Oliver told him, shrugging.

Igby wrinkled his nose, squinting down at the dog collar. "I didn't think you cared about anything," he said, after a moment. His voice was quiet, as if it had been a thought he didn't mean to let out.

Oliver didn't respond. He sat outside for another hour, turning the collar over in his hands and staring at the ground. Igby stayed.

 

 

**what might be left to say**

Igby isn't sleeping next to him after Oliver wakes, but his boxers are still on the floor. Oliver finds Igby's jacket tossed over a chair, steals the carton of cigarettes and the lighter before he goes out back to sit on the porch in nothing but his own underwear. When Igby makes it out there, he's pushing his hair out of his eyes and reaching for the cigarettes before Oliver has the chance to offer them.

Pulling one free, Igby says, "I thought you threw them away."

"I could have," Oliver says.

"Fucker."

They don't speak again, Igby's drags denting the early silence. Oliver thinks about going out for breakfast and realizes this impromptu trip home has probably put a sizeable hole in his savings account. He also thinks that, today, he's going to miss class and work because he's with his brother. It's almost an okay thought.

 


End file.
